Blogging about a photo's back-story

Not every photo blogger is a natural storyteller. After all, our pictures are supposed to be worth a thousand words and usually tell stories themselves. But, narrative can bring a beautiful element of personality and creativity to your blog.

Every now and then, an image has a certain backstory that’s too good not to share. Whether you had to overcome huge obstacles to get the perfect shot or your human subject’s story made the image even more poignant, there can be times when you get to be the raconteur as well as the shutterbug.
If you’re not a natural storyteller, you can keep these kinds of posts brief. And not every photo blog needs to contain narrative posts. But the best ones often do, and they do so in a way that is unique to that photo blogger’s style and voice.
Storytelling posts can break away from the Inverted Pyramid structure that’s a standard article-writing method. While it’s still best to let your readers know early on what your post is about, most readers will accept that a good story has a beginning, a middle, and an end—and the patient readers will (hopefully) realise that the ending is worth the wait.
However, because the internet is such a public place, you would be wise to obtain very specific permission if you plan on blogging about stories that are not yours alone. If you want to share a personal anecdote about a human subject or even your subject’s name (whether a full name or a first name), it’s best to give that person advance warning with a very accurate description of what you plan to share, then wait for that person to respond affirmatively.
And if you’re writing a story about yourself, well, just remember, the internet’s memory is long. Even if you delete your post, it’s guaranteed to be cached or archived on some server somewhere. So carefully consider how personal you want your personal stories to be.
In narrative posts, your photographs can act almost as illustrations. You may choose to feature just one big, beautiful image, like you would for an exhibit post. Or if the story you’re telling has multiple parts that relate to photos you’ve captured, you can feel free to insert several images as you weave your tale.
Blogging for Photographers by Jolie O’Dell tells you everything that you need to know about establishing your own photo-blogging website, from the basics of how to get your photos from your camera to the Internet, and looking lovely, to how you can make money from your site.

Blogging for Photographers
Jolie O’Dell
 
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RRP for print edition: £12.99